Editorial

Our treatment rooms offer a unique place to study the complexity of the human mind. As psychoanalysts, we try to understand the intricate interaction between human motivational systems, affects, emotions and thought processes. These processes are shaped by the actual biological and social environment. But it is more than that. The psychotherapeutic process involves memories from a state of mind, which is pre-linguistic, not experienced verbally. It is a form of communication built on affects, rhythms and bodily memories from the interaction with the mother, both her body and her mind. As analysts, we are involved in a living relation with our patients, and the analyst examines this relation and transforms it into thoughts and words. From our psychoanalytical practice, we have learnt that nature is our destiny. There is, however, also a social side. Thoughts open up for other dimensions. They allow man to leave the direct interaction and shape new dimensions of reality related to words and narratives as well as to bureaucratic and legal systems. Preformed fantasies are distributed 24 hours per day through mass media channels. Preformed patterns of action are stored as algorithms in computer systems of ever-increasing complexity. All over the world, authorities and other organisations, such as insurance companies, demand loyalty to these systems of thought. As a result of this development, instrumental and strategic communication increase in importance while the amount of time spent on private communication aimed at understanding and forming new meaning decreases. This development is a consequence of information technology. Its speed, its capacity to handle huge amounts of information and link the world through the Internet shapes a new dimension of reality, a new virtual reality. In other ways, it is an unknown, untouched and promising land, which we are just beginning to explore. In this issue of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis , authors from different parts of the world / Azerbaijan, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Portugal and Sweden / meet. All of them examine human interaction and the way in which thoughts take form. By examining theories from the past two centuries, they give them new meaning and link them with modern science and our present way of conducting psychotherapeutic work. In a close reading of Freud’s work On Narcissism , Manasi Kumar finds that ‘‘There are objects everywhere.’’ The author discusses the relation between narcissism and object relation. Since self-realisation and self-esteem are dependent on an answer from another independent subject, the subject is in a constant dilemma, a dilemma examined on a philosophical level by Hegel in his master /slave debate. Narcissism is also in focus in the work of Edgar Hasanov when he, referring to Adler’s inferiority complex, investigates the religious and national radicalism in Middle Eastern countries. This complex outer reality has its counterpart in the human mind. The growing complexity of the inner world is related to the capacity to suffer and not just to react reflexively to avoid mental pain. Mental pain is, in fact, part of our work as analysts. Manuela Fleming shows the need for the therapist to sustain mental pain in order to be able to help the patient. Indeed, the capacity to sustain mental pain and to transform it into suffering is of fundamental importance in order to transform pain into meaningful symbols useful for thought processes. Yoav Yiagel takes up this thread when he examines Freud’s conceptualisation of thought processes into two different forms of thought: the primary and the secondary process. He discusses the fact that the concept of primary process disappears from Freud’s later work. Central to Freud’s way of thinking on thinking is his view that all thinking is aimed at the regulation of pleasure/unpleasure. Irritation is necessary for any form of thought to come into existence. The excitation creates a state of expectation, interest and attentiveness. If this is missing, impulses from the external world pass us by without making any impression. In order to categorise thinking in his Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud (1) takes as his starting point the difference between expectation and perception. Freud used ‘‘W’’ for ‘‘Wahrnehmung’’ (perception) and ‘‘V’’ for ‘‘Vorstellung’’ (idea). He assumed that there is an innate tendency to maintain a link between them and described a compulsion to associate. When this link between idea (V) and perception (W) is established, a motor action, the aim of which is to eliminate the sources of the irritation, can be released. Freud considered that the chain of associations between idea (V) and perception (W) could be more or less complicated, and he distinguished the following forms of thought: observation, judgement, cognitive thinking, practical, theoretical and critical thinking. International Forum of Psychoanalysis. 2005; 14: 65 /67


Editorial
Our treatment rooms offer a unique place to study the complexity of the human mind. As psychoanalysts, we try to understand the intricate interaction between human motivational systems, affects, emotions and thought processes. These processes are shaped by the actual biological and social environment. But it is more than that. The psychotherapeutic process involves memories from a state of mind, which is pre-linguistic, not experienced verbally. It is a form of communication built on affects, rhythms and bodily memories from the interaction with the mother, both her body and her mind. As analysts, we are involved in a living relation with our patients, and the analyst examines this relation and transforms it into thoughts and words.
From our psychoanalytical practice, we have learnt that nature is our destiny. There is, however, also a social side. Thoughts open up for other dimensions. They allow man to leave the direct interaction and shape new dimensions of reality related to words and narratives as well as to bureaucratic and legal systems. Preformed fantasies are distributed 24 hours per day through mass media channels. Preformed patterns of action are stored as algorithms in computer systems of ever-increasing complexity. All over the world, authorities and other organisations, such as insurance companies, demand loyalty to these systems of thought. As a result of this development, instrumental and strategic communication increase in importance while the amount of time spent on private communication aimed at understanding and forming new meaning decreases. This development is a consequence of information technology. Its speed, its capacity to handle huge amounts of information and link the world through the Internet shapes a new dimension of reality, a new virtual reality. In other ways, it is an unknown, untouched and promising land, which we are just beginning to explore.
In this issue of the International Forum of Psychoanalysis, authors from different parts of the world Á/ Azerbaijan, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Portugal and Sweden Á/ meet. All of them examine human interaction and the way in which thoughts take form. By examining theories from the past two centuries, they give them new meaning and link them with modern science and our present way of conducting psychotherapeutic work.
In a close reading of Freud's work On Narcissism , Manasi Kumar finds that ''There are objects everywhere.'' The author discusses the relation between narcissism and object relation. Since self-realisation and self-esteem are dependent on an answer from another independent subject, the subject is in a constant dilemma, a dilemma examined on a philosophical level by Hegel in his master Á/slave debate. Narcissism is also in focus in the work of Edgar Hasanov when he, referring to Adler's inferiority complex, investigates the religious and national radicalism in Middle Eastern countries. This complex outer reality has its counterpart in the human mind.
The growing complexity of the inner world is related to the capacity to suffer and not just to react reflexively to avoid mental pain. Mental pain is, in fact, part of our work as analysts. Manuela Fleming shows the need for the therapist to sustain mental pain in order to be able to help the patient. Indeed, the capacity to sustain mental pain and to transform it into suffering is of fundamental importance in order to transform pain into meaningful symbols useful for thought processes.
Yoav Yiagel takes up this thread when he examines Freud's conceptualisation of thought processes into two different forms of thought: the primary and the secondary process. He discusses the fact that the concept of primary process disappears from Freud's later work.
Central to Freud's way of thinking on thinking is his view that all thinking is aimed at the regulation of pleasure/unpleasure. Irritation is necessary for any form of thought to come into existence. The excitation creates a state of expectation, interest and attentiveness. If this is missing, impulses from the external world pass us by without making any impression. In order to categorise thinking in his Project for a Scientific Psychology, Freud (1) takes as his starting point the difference between expectation and perception. Freud used ''W'' for ''Wahrnehmung'' (perception) and ''V'' for ''Vorstellung'' (idea). He assumed that there is an innate tendency to maintain a link between them and described a compulsion to associate. When this link between idea (V) and perception (W) is established, a motor action, the aim of which is to eliminate the sources of the irritation, can be released. Freud considered that the chain of associations between idea (V) and perception (W) could be more or less complicated, and he distinguished the following forms of thought: observation, judgement, cognitive thinking, practical, theoretical and critical thinking.
In the first three forms of thought, there is a direct movement between idea (V), perception (W) and the release of motor activity. This is associative thinking that is based on similarities between idea and perception. It avoids differences since they delay the release of motor action, something that in its turn stirs up unpleasure.
The second category of thinking starts when the difference between idea and perception is such that it prevents the release of a motor action, or when the motor action, which has been released, does not eliminate the sources of irritation. This thinking is reproductive in the sense that actions are examined in advance or in retrospect. Associations linked with repugnance are taken into account in critical and theoretical thinking. This demands a certain capacity to endure pain, unpleasure, as the route to action is longer than it is in direct thinking.
Primary processes are closer than secondary processes to the original excitation, and therefore they act as stimuli, responding to the pressures that produce a desire for action that will remove the source of irritation as quickly as possible. An important difference compared with the previous theories about direct and reproductive thinking is that the primary process does not have direct access to motor activity. Before an action can occur, secondary processing has to come into play, and this impedes and moderates the demands of the primary process for immediate response. This is not merely a question of delay. A more fundamental difference is that the secondary process demands identity of thought before allowing actions to take place.
This means that elements of thought are linked to each other in different ways. The primary process associates ideas, which are activated for some reason and are similar to each other. Freud refers to this as perceptual identity. This is not the case with the secondary process, as this form of thinking is analytical or, as Freud formulates it in ''The Project'', practical, critical and theoretical. The secondary processes allow negation, something which is connected with unpleasure but which is also a requirement for all forms of logical thinking.
Freud never published the Project for a Scientific Psychology himself, but thought processes and their relation to neurobiology have returned to the scientific arena. Heikki Majava links up with the present theories on neuropsychoanalysis. He refers to thought processes, focusing on the fact that ''the basic symptom of schizophrenia is the patient experiencing his own thoughts as foreign. Although the origin of the thinking procedure happens in one's own brain, a schizophrenic experiences them as if his thoughts had been transferred from outside or that he has stolen them from someone else. He then feels that his own thoughts are translucent and, equally, that the speech of others is introduced to his inner self. These basic symptoms are universal, i.e. independent of the individual, community, and the limitations of language and culture.'' Grigoris Vaslamatis complicates the understanding of the development of thought processes when he focuses on pre-verbal communication and the communicative aim of projective identifications. He is in line with Majava, but he focuses on the social dimension of human existence, on the relation between container and contained as essential for symbol formation, which is in turn a prerequisite for the development of thought processes.
Thoughts and words are linked to knowledge and creativity. The consequence of this capacity, however, is that man's oneness with nature is disrupted. The lack of preformed instinctual patterns of action makes it makes it necessary to develop subjectivity and creativity. This subject is examined by Hans Jü rgen Wirth, who takes the work of Otto Rank as one of his starting points.
Wirth identifies the secret romantic tradition in psychoanalysis. From its inception, psychoanalysis has lived with a tension between enlightenment and romanticism. The latter is especially linked to the works of Otto Rank, Carl Gustaf Jung and Sándor Ferenczi. Nowadays, the romantic tradition can be seen in the growing interest in subjectivity and relational work. Psychoanalysis is understood more as an art than a therapeutic technique. A growing number of analysts look at our work as a unique dialogue between two individuals, which cannot be caught by preformed patterns of action or thinking. The development of psychoanalytic practice thereby diverges from the general tendency in medical practice to use preformed patterns of thinking and acting.
This brings us back to virtual reality, with its implicit tendency to put the main part of mankind into a role of passive consumers or executers of preformed patterns of action. Activity is replaced by passivity. Subjectivity is replaced by ready-made reactions. This compensates nature. The human lack of constitutional patterns of reactions is substituted by stereotyped social patterns of reaction. At the same time, there is an increasing tendency to avoid mental pain and a devaluation of suffering. We have reason to consider the effects that these changes in social value systems have on man's ability for critical thinking. As psychoanalysts, we need to explore this new dimension and its effects on the mental health of our patients, their productivity and their creativity.